Richard Cosway, Portrait of a Man, Probably William Nathan Wright Hewett, ca. 1780

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “Richard Cosway, Portrait of a Man, Probably William Nathan Wright Hewett, ca. 1780,” catalogue entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan, The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, vol. 2, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1322.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “Richard Cosway, Portrait of a Man, Probably William Nathan Wright Hewett, ca. 1780,” catalogue entry. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan. The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, vol. 2, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1322.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

The subject of this miniature has traditionally been identified as William Nathan Wright Hewett, based on a later engraving on the back of the case. Some doubts were raised about this identification after the discovery of a card inside, inscribed “Henry Wilhelmi / Th 17 June 1783” (Fig. 1). Researchers have not yet uncovered any evidence of a Henry Wilhelmi residing in England at this time. While it is difficult to prove with absolute certainty, the discovery of a closely related miniature previously for sale at Christie’s, also attributed to Cosway, suggests that Hewett is indeed the most likely sitter (Fig. 2).¹ The Nelson-Atkins miniature depicts the sitter in three-quarters view, while he is facing forward in the Christie’s portrait. Their features are similarly idealized in Cosway’s characteristic manner, but both sitters have the same distinctive peaked hairlines, with wide blue eyes and straight brown brows. An aquiline nose is more prominently visible in the profile version. The sitter is erroneously identified as “W. J. N. Hewett” by Christie’s, based on the case inscription, which provides inaccurate initials for Hewett’s given names but correctly lists his date of birth and family members.²

William Nathan Wright Hewett was born in Nottinghamshire, England, on April 19, 1756, the second son of Selwood Hewett and Ann Wright.³ On September 16, 1785, Hewett married Martha Tuting in Calcutta, India.⁴ Records show that Hewett may have been in India as early as 1781, as their first son was born in Calcutta in about that year.⁵ Therefore, the miniature most likely dates to about 1780. Hewett may have commissioned multiple versions of his portrait as keepsakes for relatives before departing for India—a long and hazardous journey from which many British colonizers never returned. Stephen Lloyd has confirmed that the interior card was not inscribed by Richard Cosway.⁶ Without evidence that it is original to the making of the miniature itself, it is possible that “Henry Wilhelmi” may have been a jeweler or casemaker who reframed the miniature in 1783 or even later.⁷

In both the Nelson-Atkins and Christie’s portraits, the sitter wears a blue jacket with red facings. Such coloring was traditionally worn for hunting—and indeed, Hewett was later known to be a keen horseman.⁸ It could also be an example of the Windsor uniform; these colors were popularized by the Prince Regent, later George IV, and then adopted by his devotees, including Cosway and many of his patrons. The miniature is beautifully painted in Cosway’s characteristic technique, with bravura brushstrokes in the hair and cravat.

Hewett’s patronage of Cosway presaged his later career as an assiduous collector of art.⁹ By 1798, Hewett had returned to England and was living as a country gentleman at his residence of Bilham Hall in Yorkshire, as the case engraving suggests.¹⁰ Sadly, his passion for racing horses¹¹ and collecting Old Master paintings proved ruinous.¹² Having squandered his inherited fortune, Hewett died in Paris and was buried there on August 8, 1825.¹³

Notes

1. “Richard Cosway, R.A., Mr. W. J. N. [sic] Hewett,” sold at Important Gold Boxes, Objects of Vertu, Including Vinaigrettes, Christie’s, London, May 22, 2001, lot 166, https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-2047084.

2. The inscription states in full, “28 Born April 19th 1756 Second Son of Selwood & Ann; Father of Cornwallis, Thomas Wrighte, Peter Selwood, Thomas, and William Wrighte by Martha [T]uting his first Wife. / Richard Cosway, R.A.” Hewett’s parents, Selwood Hewett (1728–1789) and Ann Wright (1727–1788), are recorded in his baptismal certificate; Parish Registers for Nottinghamshire, ref: PR8254.

3. “William Nathan Wright Hewett baptismal certificate,” May 24, 1756, Parish Registers for Nottinghamshire, ref: PR8254. Hewett’s baptismal certificate records his birth as April 19 of that year.

4. Hewett’s marriage to Martha Tuting (1756–1811) is recorded in W. K. Firminger and E. W. Madge, “Marriages in Calcutta, 1780–1785,” Bengal Past and Present: Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society 7, no. 14 (January–June 1911): 171.

5. A son was born out of wedlock in India about 1781, the future Reverend John Short Hewett (about 1781–1835), an Anglican priest who was appointed Chaplain and Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge; Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge; and Chaplain to the Forces and Rector of Rotherhithe. John Archibald Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses; A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 348. Records indicate that Hewett served in India as Register of the Dewanny Adawlut at Midnapore in 1785, Salt Agent at Hijili from 1786 to 1796, and Judge and Magistrate of Hijili from 1787 to 1794. “Baptisms in Calcutta: 1786–1788,” Bengal Past and Present: Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society 30, no. 59 (July to September 1925): 96–97.

6. We are grateful to Stephen Lloyd, who examined the miniature during a visit to the Nelson-Atkins, October 2–5, 2023. Notes in NAMA curatorial files, 2023.

7. It is possible that the card is entirely unrelated to the making of the miniature, as paper ephemera from the artist’s studio or casemaker’s workshop was often used at random to fill the backs of cases. Visiting conservator Carol Aiken has also suggested that the inscription may be in a later hand; notes from 2017 in NAMA curatorial files.

8. This clothing also suggests the sitter was an Englishman, most likely an aristocrat or country squire, a further indication that the portrait depicts Hewett, not Wilhelmi.

9. Hewett is described in the Getty Provenance Index as “a collector who seems to have bought (and sometimes sold) on a broad scale, including some pictures of importance.” He sold large numbers of his works at auction in 1802, 1819, and 1826, seemingly motivated by financial difficulty. Getty Provenance Index, notes for sale at Christie’s, London, May 29, 1902, http://piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet.starweb?path=pi/pi.link5.web&search2=6454.

10. “Another project [of Rawstorne’s] was at Bilham Hall, a small estate lying between Hickleton and Brodsworth owned by William Nathan Wright Hewett.” Peter Coote, “Doncaster Architects No. 9: John Rawstorne,” Trust Topics: Doncaster Civic Trust Newsletter 41 (October 2010): 7. Hewett sold the Bilham estate to Peter Thellusson in about 1811, and no later than 1818.

11. Hewett and his horses were described colorfully in a Doncaster publication: “When the late Mr. Hewett resided at Bilham he was well-known, on the Town Moor, as a racing man of the old school, who ran his horses for the love of the sport, when book-making was little, if at all, known, and all the modern machinery for racing was not in general use.’” William Sheardown, “Records and Family Notices of Military and Naval Officers, who Are, or Have Been, Connected with Doncaster and Its Neighborhood,“ Doncaster Gazette (Doncaster: Gazette-Office, 1873), 24.

12. Sir Humphry Davy, The Cambridge Medical School: A Biographical History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), 205.

13. “Burial Register,” ref: RG 33, Foreign Registers and Returns, Paris.

Possibly William Nathan Wright Hewett (1756–1825), Bilham Hall, Yorkshire, about 1780–1825;

Possibly by descent to his son, Sir Prescott Hewett, Bt. (1812–1891), London, 1825–1891 [1];

Possibly by descent to his grandson, Colonel Prescott Hallett (1881–1932), Chertsey, Surrey, England, by 1927–1932 [2];

Possibly by descent to his son, John Prescott Hallett (1909–1982), Chertsey, Surrey, England, by 1932 [3];

Ethel Louisa Caroline Pauline Floersheim (1876–1959), Hove, Sussex, England, by 1950 [4];

Purchased from her sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches, Faberge Cigarette Cases, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, June 26, 1950, lot 90, as Portrait of W. N. W. Hewett, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1950–1958 [5];

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Notes

[1] During an exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1889, Sir Prescott Hewett was listed as the owner of a miniature depicting his father, which was entitled W. N. W. Hewett, by Richard Cosway. However, there are two known portraits of W. N. W. Hewett by Cosway, and it is possible that the Nelson-Atkins miniature followed a different path of ownership. John Lumsden Propert, Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures, exh. cat. (London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1889), 81. See Important Gold Boxes, Objects of Vertu, Including Vinaigrettes (London: Christie’s, May 22, 2001), lot 166, https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-2047084.

[2] Sir Prescott Hewett had three children. He was only briefly outlived by his son, Sir Harry Hammerton Hewett, 2nd Bt. (1853–1891), who died childless. His two daughters were Maud Sandys Hewett (1857–1927), who married William Charles Hallett in October 1880, and Agnes Sarah Hewett (1850–1926), who later changed her surname to Prescott-Hewett. Agnes never married and was recorded living with her sister and brother-in-law in the 1911 census. Maud had three children, including one son, Colonel Prescott Hallett, Sir Prescott Hewett’s sole male grandchild, who was the most likely inheritor of the miniature regardless of which of his children held the miniature during their lifetime, if it hadn’t already been sold. He would most likely have inherited it by the time of the death of his mother, Maud Sandys Hallett. She was buried on December 2, 1927. “Sir Prescott Gardner Hewett, 1st Bt,” The Peerage, May 26, 2022, https://www.thepeerage.com/p74200.htm.

[3] If the Nelson-Atkins miniature was still held by a family member, it was probably passed down to John Prescott Hallett by or soon after his father’s death on September 4, 1932, and then sold, either directly or indirectly, to Ethel L. C. Floersheim. This may have occurred sometime after the date of Hallett’s 1944 court martial, when the then-Acting Wing Commander was charged with stealing £200,000 from the Mahabir of Nepal, stripped of his military title, and sentenced to twelve years in prison. Hallett, who at the time of the crime was a member of staff of Lord Louis Mountbatten, then Viceroy of India, apparently convinced the Mahabir that he had the authority to sell him part of the country of Burma (which was at that time controlled by Japan). The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England, ref: MEPO 3/2397.

[4] Ethel L. C. Floersheim was born in 1876 to Louis Ferdinand Floersheim (1835–1917) and Julia Frances Ellis Eva Baddeley (1848–1931). In 1901, Ethel (along with her two siblings) inherited the family’s Pennyhill Park estate and £5,000 each. She never married and died in 1959 at the age of 83. With thanks to Maggie Keenan for this research.

[5] The lot is described as “Portrait of W.N.W. Hewett, Esq., of Bilham Hall, Yorks., by Richard Cosway, R.A., three-quarter face to the left, wearing blue coat with red collar, white vest and stock and powdered hair, oval, 1 7/8 in. high, gold frame.” This miniature is described in an annotated sale catalogue at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations were most likely made by Mr. or Mrs. Starr, with a circled lot number, an “X,” “95,” and “Leggatt.” Annotations indicate that it was purchased for £95 by Leggatt. Two other miniatures were purchased from this sale by Leggatt for the Starrs: George Engleheart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1785, F58-60/43, and Jeremiah Meyer, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1770, F58-60/89, the former of which was illustrated in the catalogue. Archival research has shown that Leggatt Brothers served as purchasing agents for the Starrs. See correspondence between Betty Hogg and Martha Jane Starr, May 15 and June 3, 1950, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

Richard Cosway, Mr. W. J. N. [sic] Hewett*, ca. 1784, oval, 2 3/16 in. (5.6 cm) high, sold at Important Gold Boxes, Objects of Vertu, Including Vinaigrettes, Christie’s, London, May 22, 2001, lot 166.

Possibly Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1889, no. 77, as W. N. W. Hewitt.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 63, as W. N. W. Hewett.

Possibly John Lumsden Propert, Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures, exh. cat. (London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1889), 81, as W. N. W. Hewitt.

Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches, Faberge Cigarette Cases (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, June 26, 1950), lot 90, as Portrait of W. N. W. Hewett.

Ross E. Taggart, “The Starr Collection of Miniatures,” Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum Bulletin 1, no. 2 (December 1958): 16, (repro.), as W. N. Hewett.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 264, as W. N. W. Hewett.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 63, p. 25, frontispiece, (repro.), as W. N. W. Hewett.

“Miniatures Catalogued,” Kansas City Star (February 6, 1972): 95.